To win in ’10, Arkansas needs statewide participation in GOP primary
From Tea Party of Lonoke County
The election year is now upon us, and polls undeniably show a strong majority of Arkansans are mad as Hell about what’s been happening in Washington.
Democrats in our Congressional delegation have overwhelmingly voted to support nearly every plank in President Obama’s platform that failed to stimulate the economy, failed to create jobs, and failed to take a strong stand against our terrorist enemies around the globe.
Two of those Democrats, Vic Snyder and Marion Berry, realized they’d followed President Obama too far down his Socialist path and have already chosen not to run for reelection. But Blanche Lincoln and Mike Ross believe they can use their millions in out-of-state cash to convince voters to ignore their votes for Obama’s Socialist agenda.
Other Democrats are stepping into the voids left by the Snyder and Berry announcements. These will claim to be different than those they hope to replace, but we’ve seen how effectively Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid bend Democrats to their will.
We need clear alternatives, candidates who will go to Washington and represent us. Candidates who will challenge the establishment and stand up for what’s right.
The problem is that Washington, DC establishment Republicans also failed to uphold Arkansas’ conservative values when they had the opportunity.
That’s why we need real change in 2010; ordinary men and women who will go Washington and take the extraordinary step of challenging the status quo, men and women who understand their job is to uphold the US Constitution and make the country a better place for our sons, daughters, and grandchildren.
Since both parties have dropped the ball recently, some are tempted to support independent or third party candidates. But history shows us these candidates have almost no chance to win. This year, they are more likely to split the conservative vote and guarantee at least two more years of the Obama Hell that we’ve suffered these past months.
Fortunately, we have an opportunity to accomplish our goals. But it will take a concerted effort on the part of conservative voters across the state.
Historically, participation in Arkansas’ Republican primary has been extremely light.
In 2004, only 54,000 of Arkansas’ 3 million residents voted in the GOP primary. More importantly, fully 41% of those reside in three counties. Eight of Arkansas’ 75 counties supplied over 67% of voters in the 2004 GOP Senate primary. This resulted in voters from a handful of counties actually selecting the GOP nominee.
If the same pattern holds this year, voters in 67 Arkansas counties will have virtually no say in who will run on the Republican ticket. If we hope to nominate a conservative candidate who can win statewide, we need that candidate to be chosen by voters statewide.
If we again allow only 8 counties to choose the GOP nominee, Arkansas will likely send another crop of Obama-Pelosi-Reid lap dogs back to Washington to continue on the path of destroying our country.
The Republican Party is counting on the Tea Party energy and emotion to deliver in the fall for whatever candidate wins the GOP nomination in May. But they may well be counting their chickens before they hatch.
Most Tea Party activists aren’t looking for Republican candidates to support, they’re looking for conservatives. And not just Republican candidates who say they’re conservative during the campaign. These disgruntled voters have had enough of experienced politicians who say one thing on the campaign trail but go to DC and play the game.
2010 could be an historic year for the Republican Party of Arkansas. There are more candidates running as Republicans than we’ve ever seen. The US Senate race alone has 9 declared candidates even though the GOP couldn’t field an opponent to run against Mark Pryor in 2008.
But not all of these candidates will satisfy the Tea Party activists’ hunger for honesty, integrity, and responsibility in their candidate of choice this year. In races across the state; veterans, small business owners, and other non-politicians stood up last spring and said “I’ll stand up for limited government, fiscal responsibility, and accountability against the Obama-Pelosi-Reid lap dogs” –before establishment Republicans realized Berry, Snyder, and Lincoln were vulnerable.
Over the last few weeks we’ve had several professional politicians and other Washington insiders jumping in these races, attending out-of-state fundraisers and claiming they’re the best candidates because they’re “electable.” Our question to them is, “Where were you when Tea Partiers and Town Hall attendees were challenging these once powerful politicians last year?” These are the candidates who will turn off Tea Party voters.
If we hope to elect “real people” who will represent Tea Party activists at the state and federal level, we need voters statewide to participate in the GOP primary. We need GOP nominees who voters in every county can support and we’ll only achieve that if voters in every county take part in their nomination.
If you agree with the 60% of Arkansans who want to stop the Obama-Pelosi-Reid train to Socialize the American economy, encourage your friends and family to vote in the GOP primary on May 18.
Help us nominate real conservatives who will represent Arkansas values in all levels of government.
Good and Bad of Halter vs. Lincoln in 2010 (Part I)
On Monday, Arkansas’ Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter announced he will run against incumbent Democrat Senator Blanche Lincoln. Many are writing that conservative GOP candidates will reap big rewards from Halter’s challenge, and it will certainly help them in some areas. But the primary competition could actually help Lincoln with Arkansas conservatives who historically vote Democrat.
It’s been widely reported that Lincoln has over $5 million in the bank while the crowded field of Republican candidates have struggled to raise campaign cash in the midst of the current recession. But, in only two days, left-wing special interest groups including Moveon.org, Act Blue, and powerful labor unions have filled Halter’s campaign coffers with $4.75 million. This puts the two Democrats on an essentially even playing field for the primary and will prevent either from hoarding funds for the general election.
The far left fringe of the Democrat party is declaring an all out war on Lincoln. The powerful left-wing labor union AFL-CIO alone has agreed to funnel $4 million to Halter’s campaign. These left-wing forces are upset because Blanche has spent her political career trying to play both ends against the middle. She supported nearly every plank in President Obama’s platform last year, but the start of the campaign has her courting the conservative majority of Arkansans. Her votes for the Wall Street bailouts, auto industry bailouts, record budget deficits, record federal debt, and Obamacare weren’t enough to satisfy the left-wing loons’ demands for more government interference in Americans’ lives.
Since returning from the Senate’s Christmas recess, Lincoln has been slinking slightly to the right. The Democrat Senator who so angered Arkansas’ conservative majority the past year by voting for the President’s Socialist policies even fired a shot across Obama’s bow last month in an effort to win back the support of her conservative constituency. In addition to asking the President to “push back against people at the extremes” of their party, she directly attacked him for his lack of administrative experience when she relayed the concerns of a constituent who worried that no one in the White House “understands what it means to go to work on Monday and make a payroll on Friday.“ Her actions since the beginning of this election year make clear the Senator believes the key to her success lies in recapturing the support of Arkansas conservatives.
But Leon H. Wolf at Redstate predicts that “Halter’s very presence in the Democratic Primary will effectively force both candidates to tack left for the Democratic primary vote.” And while a primary challenge by a left-wing Democrat in most states would do just that, several factors in Arkansas may mean Blanche’s veer to the right may be the key to a primary victory in May. Arkansas’ open primary, conservative electorate, and historical unwillingness to send Republicans to the US Capitol could benefit Lincoln more if she DOESN’T follow Halter to the left.
Arkansas’ open primary permits registered voters, regardless of party affiliation, to vote in either the Democrat or Republican primary. In the 2004 primary, 278,000 Arkansans voted in the Democrat primary vs. only 54,000 in the Republican primary. According to the Arkansas Times, in January of 2008 there were only 57,851 registered Democrats and 44,437 registered Republicans in the state. So, registered independent voters outnumbered registered Democrats participating in the 2004 Democrat primary.
These numbers indicate a Democrat primary victory in the state may be possible without the support of the far left. And it could happen that, if Halter comes across as an extreme left-wing liberal, many more conservative voters may be motivated to participate in the Democrat primary for no other reason than to vote against him. If that occurs, these voters will likely find it much easier to support Lincoln in November.
So Halter’s entry in the race will certainly benefit real conservative candidates by forcing Blanche to spend some of her hoarded campaign stash, but it may also strengthen her with those conservative Arkansans who still remain reluctant to pull the Republican lever in the voting booth.
Conservatives who want Blanche gone need to work together to exploit a Halter vs. Lincoln primary. The goal is to maximize the damage done to Lincoln’s campaign and minimize the benefits. Look for Part II of this article later this week for ideas on how to do just that.
Bipartisanship? Obama’s not even listening to the other side!
Look at him, bored to death and not paying the least bit of attention at his “health care summit.” He never intended to compromise, or even listen to GOP alternatives.
Rick Crawford Campaign HQ Open House Saturday
from the Tea Party of Lonoke County, AR
The following invitation was distributed by the Crawford for Congress Campaign.
Greetings!
You Are Invited!The Crawford for Congress Campaign would like to cordially invite you to attend the grand opening of the Crawford for Congress Campaign Headquarters this Saturday starting at 10am!
This grand opening is yet another chapter in the Crawford for Congress Campaign to take traditional American values back to Washington in a candidate that has the experience, insight, and ability to make a difference in Washington! Rick Crawford is the Statesman that we need to make a difference for the people of the First District!
WHEN: Saturday, February 13th
WHERE: 1920 South Church Street, Jonesboro
WHAT TIME: Begins at 10am, Press Conference by Rick at 1030am, and will go until Noon.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Parking will be available in the adjacent parking lot in front of Gracy’s Cafe & Wells-Fargo Mortgage. Parking will also be available next door at NAPA Auto Parts.
DIRECTIONS: The Crawford for Congress H.Q. is located directly across Church Street from Walgreens on Highland and Union and is also across Highland Avenue from McDonalds in Jonesboro.
We look forward to you coming out on Saturday to visit with Rick about his campaign! We will also have free campaign materials that you can take with you including new Crawford for Congress bumper stickers.
This will be a great opportunity for you to visit with other campaign supporters as together we work to send an experienced leader to Washington who will be a trusted voice for his constituents!
For more information or directions please call the campaign headquarters at 870-203-0540.
Can the GOP and ‘tea party’ activists get along?
by Suzi Parker at The Christian Science Monitor
They’ve clashed in some places. But in Arkansas the old guard GOP and the tea party are united, so far, in a bid to oust Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Little Rock, Ark.
Dani Martin makes light of her Facebook group “Bye Bye Blanche.”
“It’s something we’re doing to poke fun at her,” Ms. Martin, a “tea party” activist, says of Arkansas’s senior senator, Democrat Blanche Lincoln. “Blanche likes to use her femininity in defense of what she does. We’re feminine conservative girls; she doesn’t represent us.”
With Senator Lincoln up for reelection in November – and besieged on many sides for, among other things, her hesitant support for national healthcare reform – the contest here will test not only the clout of the energetic but unfocused tea party movement but also how effectively the Republican establishment taps it.
So far, the desire to oust Lincoln appears to be uniting tea party and Republican forces here. If that pattern holds, Arkansas could become the altar for a pivotal political marriage that refashions conservatism in America.
But it may also prove to be the exception rather than the rule. Elsewhere, tea party activists and the Republican old guard have clashed. In Florida, for one, tea partyers recently helped oust the Republican Party state chairman, and the two sides back different GOP candidates for the open US Senate seat there.
Moreover, though the two enjoy jolly relations in Arkansas now, anything could happen by the November election, and state conservatives have a lot of sorting out to do if they are to unseat Lincoln.
No fewer than nine candidates have so far thrown their hats into the Republican ring. Two, businessman Tom Cox, and University of Arkansas official Randy Alexander, have tea party credentials, but tea partyers say members are still weighing their choices. The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, for its part, has not endorsed a candidate.
But in a state where the Republican Party lacks strong leadership, the energy is with the tea partyers. That’s as clear to conservative activist John Allison as the nose on his face.
“We are aggressively pursuing Blanche Lincoln to get her out of office, and that is our common goal” with the GOP, says the tea party member from rural Arkansas. “The most effective thing is to move into the Republican Party instead of splitting a conservative vote. We need to get involved with them and guide them back.”
…More
Can the GOP and ‘tea party’ activists get along?
by Suzi Parker at Christian Science Monitor
Little Rock, Ark.
Dani Martin makes light of her Facebook group “Bye Bye Blanche.”
“It’s something we’re doing to poke fun at her,” Ms. Martin, a “tea party” activist, says of Arkansas’s senior senator, Democrat Blanche Lincoln. “Blanche likes to use her femininity in defense of what she does. We’re feminine conservative girls; she doesn’t represent us.”
With Senator Lincoln up for reelection in November – and besieged on many sides for, among other things, her hesitant support for national healthcare reform – the contest here will test not only the clout of the energetic but unfocused tea party movement but also how effectively the Republican establishment taps it.
So far, the desire to oust Lincoln appears to be uniting tea party and Republican forces here. If that pattern holds, Arkansas could become the altar for a pivotal political marriage that refashions conservatism in America.
But it may also prove to be the exception rather than the rule. Elsewhere, tea party activists and the Republican old guard have clashed. In Florida, for one, tea partyers recently helped oust the Republican Party state chairman, and the two sides back different GOP candidates for the open US Senate seat there.
Moreover, though the two enjoy jolly relations in Arkansas now, anything could happen by the November election, and state conservatives have a lot of sorting out to do if they are to unseat Lincoln.
No fewer than nine candidates have so far thrown their hats into the Republican ring. Two, businessman Tom Cox, and University of Arkansas official Randy Alexander, have tea party credentials, but tea partyers say members are still weighing their choices. The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, for its part, has not endorsed a candidate.
But in a state where the Republican Party lacks strong leadership, the energy is with the tea partyers. That’s as clear to conservative activist John Allison as the nose on his face.
“We are aggressively pursuing Blanche Lincoln to get her out of office, and that is our common goal” with the GOP, says the tea party member from rural Arkansas. “The most effective thing is to move into the Republican Party instead of splitting a conservative vote. We need to get involved with them and guide them back.”
…More
Arkansas the NRSC’s NY-23? Not so fast.
Was it too much to hope for that the GOP might actually have learned a lesson from the disastrous turn of events in New York’s 23rd Congressional District earlier this month? After the NRCC blew nearly a million dollars on a RINO candidate who, in the end, dropped out and endorsed her Democratic rival, you’d think leaders of the Republican Party would realize victory isn’t assured in 2010 because a candidate has an “R” beside his name. And maybe they have.
One might even expect GOP heavyweights to recognize the grassroots’ aversion to candidates too deeply entrenched in the political establishment, especially when their adherence to conservative principles is in question. But even if they can’t take quite that big a step at the moment, the essential lesson from NY-23 is the national party needs to step aside and let the grassroots determine their nominee. But does that mean they can’t offer any help until a candidate is chosen?
In Arkansas, a state where Democratic Senator Mark Pryor didn’t even face a Republican challenger last year, there are already seven announced Republican candidates running for Democrat Blanche Lincoln’s Senate seat in 2010. Only two hold political office, while the others come from a variety of backgrounds–farming, business, medicine, and military–but have never run for office. This may be the most contested Republican primary for national office in Arkansas’ history.
After Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) promise that the National Republican Senatorial Committee “will not spend money in a contested primary,” conservatives in the state probably assumed the national GOP hierarchy would stand aside and let Arkansans decide who would stand against Lincoln next November. But some are wondering if Cornyn and his colleagues at the top of the GOP food chain are already working to anoint a candidate in the crowded field.
Cornyn, along with Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), David Vitter (R-LA), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) held an NRSC fundraiser last week for Arkansas State Senator Gilbert Baker in Washington and there are shouts from every corner that this reeks of the Scozzafava scenario in New York. But Amber Wilkerson Marchand, spokeswoman for the NRSC says, “Baker had asked to have the fundraiser at the committee’s headquarters in Washington, and that the group would allow other candidates to have events there if they asked.”
Though we’ve been unable to reach all of Baker’s opponents, we did reach Arkansas Tea Party, Inc. founder and 2010 GOP Senate candidate Tom Cox. When asked if the committee had offered to host a similar event for his campaign he stated, “I can’t speak for the other candidates, but they [NRSC] made that offer to me.” So it doesn’t appear they plan to anoint Baker in the Arkansas race.
It looks like the NRSC might have learned from their congressional counterpart’s costly error last month that sent Democrat Bill Owens to the US House. They’re simply helping candidates raise much needed cash to unseat Lincoln.
Relax folks. No crisis here.
The Myth of ’08, Demolished
by Charles Krauthammer at Townhall.com
WASHINGTON — Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday’s elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.
In the aftermath of last year’s Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics — most prominently, rising minorities and the young — would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed “The Death of Conservatism,” while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.
This was all ridiculous from the beginning. 2008 was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.
Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia — presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in ’08 for the first time in 44 years — went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 — a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus 15 Democratic in 2008 to minus 4 in 2009. A 19-point swing.
What happened? The vaunted Obama realignment vanished.
…More
Scozzafava: A lesson learned (hopefully)
Immediately following the election a year ago, a great debate ensued. Conservatives, liberals and moderates jumped at the chance to give their opinion on the cause of the great GOP meltdown that swept Democrats into control of the White House and both Houses of Congress. This debate centered on the question, “Where does the GOP go from here?”
The question should be answered today when the results are announced in the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
Last November, liberals across the country danced in the streets and proclaimed Conservatism was dead. Their answer to the pivotal question called for a hard left turn on the part of the Republican Party. Claiming the GOP had shifted “too far to the right” in recent years, left wingers were convinced Republicans had distanced themselves from the American mainstream. In short, they were calling for Republicans to embrace Democratic ideals, policies, and practices. To do otherwise, they said, would be the equivalent of committing political suicide.
Moderates mostly called for a GOP shift to the left on social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and hate crimes legislation, and a return to conservative ideals of fiscal conservatism and limited government. These folks basically suggested the Republicans altogether abandon social conservatives, a core group that forms a significant portion of the party’s base.
And true conservatives tried to convince party leaders their future success lies in a return to true conservatism, standing tall for the principles espoused in the party’s platform. This group placed the blame for the catastrophic last two election cycles squarely at the feet of party potentates who spent years doing exactly what liberals and moderates now say will cure the cancer that has stricken the GOP. Conservative groups sprung up across the country, online and on the ground, to challenge the seeming omnipotence of Barack Hussein Obama as he imposed his left-wing, Socialist agenda on the American people.
When the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed liberal Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist over his conservative challenger earlier this year, it became clear the Republican elite had chosen not to listen to those conservatives who were taking to the streets in rallies across the country. The GOP leaders were happy to ride the wave of enthusiasm that followed the Tea Parties, but remained unwilling to believe embracing their ideals was the key to rebuilding the party.
The reality is that for too long, DC Republicans have taken the conservative base of the party for granted. Believing these folks had nowhere else to turn, they chose to court left-wing liberals through compromise and sometimes outright abandonment of party principles. Though evidence of this was in plain view following last November’s election, Republicans in power were obviously blinded by a refusal to see they themselves were to blame for the precipitous decline of the party over the previous decade.
The inability to comprehend the error of their ways was even more evident last month when the Republican National Committee strong-armed local party committees in New York’s 23rd Congressional District to anoint left-wing radical Dede Scozzafava the Republican nominee for today’s special election. Then virtually all Republicans in positions of power endorsed this dream candidate of leftists everywhere over a true conservative, Doug Hoffman running on the Conservative Party ticket. But the most egregious error on the part of the national party was to spend approximately $1,000,000 promoting a candidate who stood for everything conservatives stand against, in an effort to defeat Hoffman.
These supposed leaders must now have an extremely bitter taste in their mouths after expending so much political capital to get liberal Scozzafava elected only to have her drop out last Saturday in response to her rapidly plummeting poll numbers. But then the RINO Scozzafava stabbed the GOP hierarchy in the back and twisted the knife by endorsing Democrat Bill Owens in the race. A million dollars thrown down to support a candidate who ultimately ends up endorsing a sure-to-be Obama shill on the Hill.
Many consider today’s elections a referendum on President Obama’s agenda, and his lackeys in the mainstream media are trying hard to lessen the sting of the anticipated losses. But try as they might, they can’t deny the inevitable fact that today’s elections are shaping up to be a victory for the conservative cause.
Though the liberal LA Times makes every effort to hold onto the hope of an Owens victory, even that left-wing rag was forced yesterday to admit Hoffman was leading the Democrat by 5 points on the eve of today’s election. Rebecca Sinderbrand of CNN argues that an Owens loss today could spell more trouble for the GOP than for Obama and the Democrats. And that network’s Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser paints the picture of an angry mob of frustrated voters will be responsible for snatching defeat from Democrats in today’s elections. The NY Times admits that Hoffman will most likely win the New York House seat but claims “Republicans seeking to get back in power [in 2010] in swing states should strike a moderate tone.”
It’s now time for the leadership in the GOP to make their choice. Should the party continue on the path that would have resulted in its demise had it not been for the conservative awakening evidenced by the Tea Parties, 912 movement and others? Or should it embrace this powerful new grassroots force that resuscitated it and brought it back from the brink of death?
Some seem to be getting the picture, but others have yet to open their eyes.
House Minority Leader John Boehner stated yesterday that he regrets having ever endorsed Scozzafava. Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee finally endorsed the conservative Hoffman after liberal Scozzafava was forced to quit the race. But one-time leader of the conservative wing of the GOP, Newt Gingrich, refuses to admit his error in betting on the losing donkey and instead blasts conservative grassroots activists for working to purge the party of RINOs who would rather see a far left Democrat win than a true conservative.
Next year’s mid-term elections are one year away. Hopefully the Scozzafava lesson has been learned by most of the GOP elite. To the leaders of the party:
You’re either with us or against us. Return to the principles espoused in the GOP platform, or stand aside. Because conservatives in this country are on the move and are willing to stamp out RINOs anywhere and everywhere we find them.
Subscribe
Never Forget!
Graphic courtesy of Cap'n Bob
ARRA
Blogs 4 Borders
Register to Vote!
Join the NRA!
912 Project
Friends of Israel
College Republican National Committee
America, You Asked For It! 